Eyebloc:

A Webcam Cover That Blocks Laptop Cameras & Webcams

Eyebloc: A Webcam Cover That Blocks Laptop Cameras & Webcams

Eyebloc: The Pitch

In Season 5, Episode 13 of Shark Tank, C.J. Isakow approached the Sharks seeking an investment of $50,000 exchange for 10% equity in Eyebloc. The company is currently based in Washington DC.

The Eyebloc is an invention designed to capitalize upon recent news about web privacy invasion online. The Eyebloc is a small piece of plastic which hangs over the webcam on a laptop. This ensures that if the machine is ‘hacked’ the hacker will be unable to see through the webcam. C.J. Isakow believed that this would be a ‘top selling’ idea as he believed that more and more people would begin to take an interest in their privacy online.

At the time of the pitch the Eyebloc webcam cover had only been on the market for six weeks. In this time it had only sold a few units. This did not interest the Sharks too much. The shark investors are after a company which is able to demonstrate that a market exists by shifting thousands of units already. Selling one or two products here and there virtually guarantees that they are going to have a hard task introducing it to the mass market.

Another concern of the Sharks was the belief that the price of the product was far too high. It was currently being sold for $9.99. They believed that if C.J. Isakow was serious about selling millions of these units it would have to be priced somewhere in the region of $2.99. He claimed that he most likely would be able to reduce the price to this point but it would require an investment to do so.

The main concern for the Sharks was the fact that there is competition in the market for webcam blockers. Despite being a VERY niche market there were a number of companies attempting to sell products to ‘cover up’ webcams to combat breaches of privacy. Several other companies are marketing the product as a laptop webcam cover, computer camera cover or webcam blocker. They believed that a marketing campaign that could help differentiate the product from others out there would not be worth their time or money. All of the sharks decided to pull out of further discussions.

Eyebloc: Result

C.J. Isakow was unable to secure any offers from the investors. This meant that he ended up leaving the Shark Tank empty-handed.

Eyebloc: Investors

The Sharks were unwilling to make an offer for a product which they believed would gain absolutely no traction in the mass market. They believed that it would be far too difficult to recoup their initial investment.